There’s an election coming and you should vote, but a healthy democracy requires more of its citizens than rocking up to the polling booth. Ideally, all of us would do some thinking before voting, and politics relies on a smaller number actually doing: party activists are an important part of the electoral process, putting in the unpaid work of leafleting and door-knocking.
This activism is on the wane. Combined Conservative and Labour membership was around 4 million in the early 1950s – nearly one in 10 people. These days it’s nearer one in a 100 who are a member of one of the big three UK-wide parties.
